insurance

Romneycare Days Numbered?

And in the beginning Romneycare begat Obamacare. But Romneycare's days may be numbered. <blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #171717; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">RomneyCare’s pioneering health insurance exchange is headed for the scrap heap.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #171717; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bay State officials are taking steps this week to junk central parts of their dysfunctional health insurance exchange — the model for President Barack Obama’s health care law — and merge with the federal enrollment site HealthCare.gov.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #171717; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The decision is part of an expensive plan that would occur alongside a parallel, last-ditch attempt to still build a working state system.</blockquote><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #171717; margin-bottom: 0.9em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/massachusetts-romneycare-health-care-exchange-106362.html" target="_blank">POLITICO</a></div>

Romneycare Days Numbered?

And in the beginning Romneycare begat Obamacare. But Romneycare's days may be numbered. RomneyCare’s pioneering health insurance exchang...

7:41 PM

The ObamaTax and the IRS

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://fonolo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/IRS-Tax-Man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="http://fonolo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/IRS-Tax-Man.jpg" width="130" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Were the stakes not so high, this could be funny: "<a href="http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2014/05/01/watchdog-waiting-for-irs-ppaca-fraud-systems?eNL=5362aa78160ba0df232747a4&utm_source=LifeHealthProNewsFlash&utm_medium=eNL&utm_campaign=LifeHealthPro_eNLs&_LID=97695454" target="_blank">The investigators charged with keeping tabs on the Internal Revenue Service have no way to tell how well they can detect health insurance premium tax credit fraud</a>." No kidding The problem is that the distinction between "fraud" and "honest mistake" is a very thin line as regards the ObamaTax. After all, in applying for a subsidized individual plan through the Marketplace, one is asked to rely on "anticipated" income in an economy that is anything but robust. Some folks have fairly regular, steady incomes, but a lot have spikes, and dry spells (think commissioned sales people, entrepreneurs, etc). And of course,between the poorly-secured 404Care.gov site and <a href="http://insureblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/obamatax-navigators-what-are-they-hiding.html" target="_blank">unvetted Navigators</a>, the system itself is fraught with the potential of major fraud on the government's end. In related developments, the IRS has "<a href="http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2014/05/02/irs-completes-ppaca-tax-form-rules?eNL=53641921160ba0814e9bfbaa&utm_source=HCRW&utm_medium=eNL&utm_campaign=LifeHealthPro_eNLs&_LID=107687085" target="_blank">given the new public health insurance exchanges rules for reporting on the private health coverage they have sold</a>." To wit: they've released the long-awaited Form 1095-A, which insurers must use to report - monthly(!) - how many <strike>victims</strike> customers they've "enrolled." The government will then use this info to bolster the tax credits program (see Fraud above). Exit question: is it just me, or is it, well, curious that the form doesn't include how many enrollees have actually paid for their new plans?</div>

The ObamaTax and the IRS

Were the stakes not so high, this could be funny: " The investigators charged with keeping tabs on the Internal Revenue Service have no...

10:18 AM

FUBAR

Should Obamacare be fixed or repealed?  <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-YBmn8tLc0rWykIZi0I4vJ6dBy4Kwt6Xz5vpObXpNUSs_O8nwfF6VGSUUXDt3g2RkJZWArFAJTAikCyFctJKYkqi8ycA4kvi7r1JTPUJdOk7UBL4wK9qzmCOjXFOpJOgAEzKqOJJqYxg/s1600/obamacare+FUBAR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-YBmn8tLc0rWykIZi0I4vJ6dBy4Kwt6Xz5vpObXpNUSs_O8nwfF6VGSUUXDt3g2RkJZWArFAJTAikCyFctJKYkqi8ycA4kvi7r1JTPUJdOk7UBL4wK9qzmCOjXFOpJOgAEzKqOJJqYxg/s1600/obamacare+FUBAR.jpg" width="200" /></a></div> Depends on who you talk to . . . and who has read the law . . . and who hasn't. <blockquote class="tr_bq">Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), the No. 4 House Republican, is walking back comments attributed to her that ObamaCare can’t be repealed. But she’s not the only one suggesting Congress merely make changes within the framework of the health law. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says the goal is to get the law “fixed.” It seems many GOP lawmakers still haven’t read the law, or they’d know the framework is corrupt.</blockquote><a href="http://nypost.com/2014/04/30/gop-foolish-to-think-obamacare-is-fixable/" target="_blank">NY Post</a> Corrupt? Pretty strong words, don'tcha think? Or just brutal honesty. 8 million have allegedly signed up for Obamacare. The population is around 315 million. About a third of those are on Medicare or Medicaid. That leaves 200 million+ that could be covered by some form of Obamacare (including employer plans that pass the IRS smell test). So why can't it be repealed? <blockquote class="tr_bq" style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2f; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">Instead of government employees promoting ObamaCare and enrolling the uninsured, the law (Sec. 1311) reserves these jobs for community activists, unions, community health centers and other not-for-profits. Players include the NAACP, Planned Parenthood and Service Employees International Union. Hiring these groups is a way to fund the Democratic Party’s shadow army between elections.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2f; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">Assisters sign up the uninsured for non-health benefits and register them to vote. The National Association of Community Health Centers identifies voter registration as a key part of its mission.</blockquote><div style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2f; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sounds like corruption to me.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #2e2e2f; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">Or it could just be FUBAR.</div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; border: 0px; color: #2e2e2f; font-family: pt-serif, Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div>

FUBAR

Should Obamacare be fixed or repealed? Depends on who you talk to . . . and who has read the law . . . and who hasn't. Rep. Cathy McMor...

10:48 AM

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Dan_Fogelberg_-_Twin_Sons_of_Different_Mothers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Dan_Fogelberg_-_Twin_Sons_of_Different_Mothers.jpg" width="140" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Consider this: "<a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/health/473325/Millions-to-suffer-as-NHS-is-about-to-run-out-of-cash" target="_blank">The NHS faces such a crisis that it is a question of “when, not if” it runs out of money, a report warns. Health charity the King’s Fund says that with a quarter of trusts already in deficit, a financial meltdown is “inevitable by 2015-’16 and could arrive sooner</a>” This has significant relevance to our own ObamaTax system, since it was touted as "bending the cost curve" (presumably downward) thus reining in ever-increasing health care costs. As we can see from the experience of the Much Vaunted National health System©, such schemes do not, in fact, actually lead to that result. But we can look closer to home for an even more egregious example. The VA is, in fact, a nationalized health care delivery system, run by government bureauweenies, and is most likely the kind of system proponents of the ObamaTax would like to see implemented for the entire country. And how well does the VA handle health care? Well: "<a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/veterans-affairs-officials-purged-1.5-million-unfinished-medical-orders/article/2547921" target="_blank">More than 1.5 million medical orders were canceled by the Department of Veterans Affairs without any guarantee the patients received the treatment or tests they needed</a>" Granted, that is one way to reduce health care costs, but I'm pretty sure that's not what the rest of us actually had in mind. Warm fuzzies, indeed.</div>